Xiaomi has released the Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro gaming smartphones globally, including in the U.S. In late March, the duo was unveiled in China in several RAM and storage configurations. While the global models are almost identical to the Chinese variants in terms of hardware, there's one notable difference. While the Black Shark 5 lineup in China includes three models, the global lineup only has two, with the Black Shark 5 RS missing in action.
With dedicated gaming phones attracting a niche but dedicated fan-following, several smartphone makers have introduced such devices over the past few years. That includes Black Shark, which is Xiaomi's dedicated gaming sub-brand that competes with the likes of the Asus ROG Phones and the Nubia Red Magic devices. The original Black Shark phone was announced in 2018, and the company has since regularly updated the line with new devices yearly.
The Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro are already available for purchase through the AliExpress store and the company's official site. It will also be available in select global markets through local Amazon Stores. The two devices have several similarities, including their 144Hz 6.67-inch FHD+ Samsung E4 AMOLED displays with a 720Hz touch sampling rate. They also have 4,650mAh batteries with 120W fast charging that the company claims can juice up the batteries fully in just 15 minutes. The devices also come with the so-called 'Sandwich' liquid cooling system to keep the thermals in check and increase gaming performance. They also come with magnetic pop-up triggers for more intuitive gaming. In terms of software, both run on JoyUI 13 based on Android 12 and come with Black Shark's artificial intelligence-based GameEngine Performance Optimization.
Black Shark 5 and Black Shark 5 Pro Hardware
For all their similarities, the two devices are powered by different processors. The Black Shark 5 comes with a Snapdragon 870 under the hood, while the 5 Pro comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The higher-end model also has faster 6,400MHz RAM than the 5,500MHz memory in the vanilla Black Shark 5. Also, the vanilla model offers up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, while the Pro comes with up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. In addition, both are offered with up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.
Another area of difference between the two devices is the cameras. The Black Shark 5 Pro comes with a 108-megapixel primary camera, while the Black Shark 5 sports a 64-megapixel sensor. Along with that, the Pro gets a 13-megapixel wide-angle shooter and a 5-megapixel telephoto camera, while the vanilla model gets a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera and a macro camera of unspecified resolution. In terms of pricing, Black Shark 5 starts from $549 for the 8GB+128GB model, while the Black Shark 5 Pro starts at $799 for the same RAM and storage combo.